3. Cirri
Chapter 3
Cirri
W e were rushed out of the Cathedral, the Sisters unwilling to entertain a vampire in their midst for any longer than it took to marry me off to one.
I walked at Lord Bane’s side, trying and almost succeeding to keep my breathing slow and steady. The top of my head failed to clear his shoulder. The vampire took up almost the entire hallway with his bulk, and I felt crushed inwards by his presence, nothing more than a speck of dust drifting in his wake.
A carriage, hitched to ebony geldings, waited for us in the stableyard. It was massive, clearly designed to hold a fiend—lacquered blood-red, only a few shades away from black, with the crest of Ravenscry detailed in gold on its side. Dust had coated much of its splendor.
The driver was another vampire. He was no fiend; his face was handsome in a pretty, boyish sort of way, skin as smooth and poreless as porcelain, eyes gleaming green and cut vertically with thin pupils. When he smiled, tipping his hat to me, he revealed two long, neat incisors.
It was hard to imagine that the Lord of the Rift had once looked anything like that.
I licked my dry lips as the driver held the carriage door open, and my husband gestured, his black claws catching the midday sun. Each claw was the length of one of my fingers.
“After you, my lady.”
I had heard many voices in my life described as ‘deep’. The choirs of the priesthood boasted bassos whose voices seemed to hum in my bones.
Lord Bane’s voice went beyond that. When he spoke, my bones hummed, but my heart also raced. He sounded… hardly human, not like the smooth-spoken vampires I’d seen in Argent. There was a savage roughness overlaying the rumbling bass of his voice.
When he showed me what lay hidden under the cloak and hood, I understood.
He spoke through a mouth full of fangs, with a forked tongue.
I signed with one hand, a quick and nervous gesture of appreciation for his manners, and the bell on my wrist chimed, filling the air with its sweet sound.
There was an almost imperceptible flinch in the vampires’ shoulders.
The Sisters had not given me a choice in my wedding attire; they’d insisted on the bells and the rowan crown, and the red wedding gown of Veladari custom. No human bride in this country would ever marry in a color other than scarlet.
The tradition dated back to the days of the Red Epoch. Too many women were stolen from the marriage altar by vampires; it was thought that a bride wed in red would show that she had already been bitten and sampled, making her a less attractive prize to them.
The Eldest had laughed as she set the crown of rowan on my hair, knowing the scent would be harsh and unpleasant to the vampires. And then she’d brought out the bells.
I hadn’t realized just how painful that sound might be to him. Like his voice, with the removal of his hood, many things became more clear.
I climbed into the carriage, doing my best not to move my hands any more than necessary, and slid into a seat of pure luxury. The interior was rich, paneled with dark wood and the seats thick and velvety. The ride to the Rift would be made in more comfort than I’d ever experienced in my life.
I was followed by the bloodwitch, who sat next to me. She appeared to be in her late thirties, though the ages of bloodwitches, like vampires, were deceptive. Her ash blonde hair was twisted into a tidy chignon, an expensive pair of gold-framed spectacles perched on her nose. Her own nails were nearly long enough to be called claws, and capped with gilded filigree sheaths.
The Sisterhood had also provided me with a lady’s maid, as befitted someone with a lai in her name—they had not wanted to tip off Lord Bane to the fact that his new bride was an indentured servant herself, though that would become apparent soon enough.
But Ellena stood outside the carriage, taking in the small space, her mouth pinched. “May I ride with the driver?”
I knew that she did not like the idea of being trapped in here with a fiend. She had cried when the Eldest Sister ordered her to accompany me to the Rift and attend to me, but that was not her only job.
But Lord Bane merely rolled his shoulders. “Do as you please.”
Ellena exhaled an audible sigh of relief, and climbed up on the coachman’s bench.
Which left Lord Bane himself to enter the carriage, squeezing his broad shoulders through the door. The entire contraption groaned as it took the weight of the fiend, and he settled himself on the seat opposite me and the bloodwitch, pulling the door shut behind him and locking it in place with an iron bar.
With the dull sound of that bar falling into place, it finally hit me.
This was real.
The monster sitting across from me was my husband. The carriage was a cage, dragging me across the country to a place I’d never seen outside of books. I had been sold, unable to speak a word in my defense.
As the carriage lurched forward, the dark horses drawing it out of the stableyard, I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, translating Nord wyrd-runes in my head to calm myself.
The streets of Argent flashed by outside the dark, smoky windows when I opened my eyes. It was still real.
Lord Bane watched me in silence, the thin, cat-like pupils of his gaze widening against the brilliant gold of his irises. What should have been the whites of his eyes were as black as ink, his skin a deep, ashen gray.
I gazed back at him, slowly taking in… everything he was.
His size had to be part of his fiend nature. He was unnaturally large, but well-muscled from what I could see of the legs stretched before me. A perfect predator.
High, sharp cheekbones, curved upwards like horns, jutted above a thick lantern jaw distended to accommodate fangs. A row of tiny, rounded spicules protruded through his brows, growing in size as they moved up his forehead to the hairline, all the way to the sharp, angular horns sweeping back over black hair.
These things might have been overlooked, were it not for the wide, pointed ears that seemed to swivel at every tiny sound. The almost muzzle-like shape of his lower face, his nostrils slitted, lips deformed to expose a rack of gleaming fangs.
His entire face was deformed with sharp, cartilaginous ridges that traveled over the bridge of his nose and up to his forehead, giving him a bestial aspect.
Despite his appearance, fine clothes had been carefully tailored to fit his oversized, distorted body. Trousers, a crimson brocade waistcoat, a linen shirt… all of it pulled out of shape and hidden under a cloak. In these close quarters, I could smell him clearly, a pleasant scent like woodsmoke and cedar. It seemed strange that someone so hideous could smell so appealing. Shouldn’t he reek of gore and decay?
Bane gazed back at me, watching my eyes move downward, and without a word he pulled the cloak to cover shoeless feet that were more like paws, tipped with thick, curving talons.
The sum of his parts reminded me of a bat, of all things. A larger-than-life, wolf-skinning beast, wearing the clothes of a nobleman.
The Lifegiver, the bloodwitch had called him—though it seemed more like his title should be Lifetaker.
Had it hurt to lose the exceptional beauty of a vampire, in order to become… this thing?
I would ask him why he had chosen this. If I was to live as his bride, I would have to speak with him at some point.
It was an automatic gesture to reach for the slate I always kept tied to my bodice, and I realized with a shade of panic that it was gone.
I’d forgotten that they’d taken the slate when I was dressed for the wedding. They hadn’t even given me time to pack my few meager belongings, but the slate… that was the only way I had to communicate with most of the world.
Taking a few quick, anxious breaths, I signed with shaking hands. Do you have anything to write with?
The jingle of silver bells filled the interior of the carriage. Both vampire and bloodwitch flinched, jaws clenching.
I’d forgotten the damned bracelets. Moving as carefully as possible, I unclasped the silver bracelets, cupping the bells in my palm so they wouldn’t ring.
Then I slid the window open, extended my hand, and dropped them on the streets of Argent. Maybe an urchin would find them and pay for a few good meals—my wedding gift to our people.
The rowan crown followed, with a few strands of my hair still caught in the sap-oozing branches. If the bells made them flinch, the smell was probably intolerable in this enclosed space.
I was already married. I had to do what I could to uphold the peace between our kinds. Veladar’s protection and stability depended on me.
Something flickered in Lord Bane’s eyes as I shut the window again. Though the rest of him was beastly… something in his gaze seemed almost human.
I wished I knew what that flicker had been, but it was once more hidden. The gold-and-black gaze was unreadable to me.
He watched my hands, his head tilted slightly. Was that recognition in his eyes? I could only hope.
I pantomimed writing once more, and the bloodwitch gave me a sweet smile.
“I apologize, but the only paper I have is our original copy of the Blood Accords, so it’s quite untouchable. You are… mute. Yes?”
I nodded, frustration welling in me, a familiar tide I was powerless to halt.
I can speak perfectly well with my hands. Perhaps someone in the Rift could translate? My hands still trembled with the residual shock of discovering I was to be married today, as well as hunger.
Lord Bane’s gaze followed the motions of my fingers, his ridged brow furrowing even deeper. He looked like he might lean forward and bite, taking off my hands at the wrists with ease.
“You speak the priests’ tongue?” he asked, voice rumbling in my chest.
My hands froze, excitement spearing through me. He was a veteran from the front lines of the Forian War. Surely he’d met the warrior-priests of the Brotherhood, who were all vowed to silence?
I nodded. Do you? Please tell me you understand.
The vampire watched my fingers, then shifted his gaze back to my face. I wasn’t sure how, but he seemed rueful to me—his lips shifted over that rack of fangs in what might have been called a smile. “I apologize. I’ve seen the Silent Brothers speak, but I know very little of their language beyond our wartime shorthand.”
The weight of my own disappointment was shocking.
I lowered my hands to my lap, all hope gone. Even if I had my slate, what guaranteed that they would read it? I would be reduced to scrawling out hasty questions, hoping someone was patient enough to read it. For a moment, I considered trying to mouth words to them, but I didn’t have a decent grasp on how to actually form the shape of sounds with lips and tongue—I had always been reliant on my hands or slate. Any lip-reader would be baffled by my fumblings.
“We have time for that later,” the bloodwitch interrupted. She had deposited the signed copy of the Accords in an iron-bound trunk beneath our seat, and acquired a leather bag. I hadn’t noticed her preparing a small vial full of a dense, dark liquid. “I will need a drop of your blood.”
She held a small needle. Iron, not silver. The metal was dull, but the point was fresh and sharp.
Before I could attempt to ask why, she seized my right hand and jabbed the needle into my fingertip, squeezing until a drop of blood welled. With deft hands, she caught the blood in the vial and capped it, shaking vigorously.
I drew my breath in a silent hiss, bringing my finger to my mouth. From the corner of my eye, Lord Bane watched me, his attention narrowed in on my finger. Those slit nostrils had widened, and as the tip of his forked tongue slipped out, I realized he was breathing in the scent of my blood.
Tasting it on the air.
A shiver ran down my spine, knowing that he would taste me, and soon.
The bloodwitch uncapped the vial and offered it to me. “Drink this. It must be done now to give it enough time to work.”
I took the vial, my fingertip still smarting. Meeting the bloodwitch’s eyes directly, I tilted my head in inquiry.
“It will cleanse you of any contaminants. No vampire will marry a human with diseased blood.” The bloodwitch flapped a hand to rush me along. “Drink up, if you please.”
I looked at the thick, syrupy contents, and exhaled slowly. What could it hurt? I was already in their grasp, and besides, they needed me if they wanted Lord Bane to keep his hold on the Rift. Obviously it wouldn’t be poisoned.
Tipping the vial to my lips, I drank it. It rolled over my tongue, as syrupy as it looked, starting off with a not-unpleasant floral taste and rapidly descending into a choking sort of spice.
Coughing, feeling my face grow red-cheeked, I handed her the vial. The bloodwitch tucked it in the bag, satisfied that I’d drunk it all.
“Good. You will be perfectly pure of any contaminants in time for the wedding.”
My brows shot up as I coughed into my hands. What had we just done, if not get married?
“That might have passed for a wedding among your kind,” Lord Bane said, leaning forward. My breath caught as his presence seemed to loom over me. “For mine, it was hardly more than a muddled promise. We will have a wedding in the tradition of my people in Ravenscry. Only then will the vampires recognize you as my wife.”
What did a vampire wedding entail? The Veladari tradition of silver dust smeared on the bride’s throat was almost certainly disdained. Even the Eldest Sister had deemed that as going too far in insulting Lord Bane.
I imagined that drinking blood was part of it… though I hoped if that was necessary, I could simply provide it with the needle again. I knew he would drink mine, at least a few drops.
But the idea of drinking his blood…
I pointed to him, and then held up my pierced fingertip, and mimed myself drinking. For good measure, because I despised the thought of these people thinking of me as a simple idiot, I added my question with curt signs: am I expected to drink your blood, Lord Bane?
“Oh dear, no.” The bloodwitch patted my hand reassuringly, correctly interpreting my broader movements. “You will never taste Lord Bane’s blood. It binds a human to a vampire permanently, you see. He would be able to feel you in his head for the rest of your life, and it would be a very, very long life. A vampire only offers a portion of his blood…” She waved her hand vaguely.
“To a true mate,” Lord Bane supplied, his deep rumble ending in a growl.
I nodded my understanding, but deep inside, I felt oddly rejected. There was no good reason to feel this way; only this morning, I had washed a sea of blood from the floor and was then thrown into marrying him.
Maybe it was because I had never expected to marry at all. And now that I was… it was merely because I was the best thing the Sisters could scrape up at short notice. A political pawn.
A means to an end.
My inability to speak likely didn’t matter to him at all. He wasn’t going to want to answer my questions, nor crave a conversation.
I was a thing he had been saddled with, as much as I had been saddled with him.
“As for your blood, the cleansing is a necessary step. You’d be surprised by the contaminants found in the human body.” The bloodwitch’s expression was pleasant, but there was something as hard and cold as steel in her eyes. “For a time, it was a popular tactic to feed women silver dust and watch the vampires who drank from them die choking. I’m sure the Eldest Sister would never have considered such a deceitful and treacherous thing, but one can never be too careful.”
I swallowed, my hands still silent in my lap.
So they considered me a potential enemy. It was no secret that some voices in the Silver Sisterhood had advocated for breaking the Blood Accords after the Forians had been driven back—why exchange one captor for another?
But we owed them a debt of life. The Forians and their worship of Wargyr, their mad, wolf-headed god of war, had led to too many Veladari sacrifices.
I shook my head, knowing I could not make myself clear. No matter how deeply this marriage horrified me, I would not be responsible for destroying the Accords. I would never make an attempt on his life.
The blood of too many Veladari had gone into that agreement to secure our freedom.
What happens at a vampire wedding? I asked, not making much effort to sign clearly. They couldn’t understand.
The vampire—the fiend—was once more watching me sign with that scowling expression. Wilting under the force of that glare, I returned my hand to my lap. Perhaps I offended him, much as Eldest Sister had despised what she called ‘the spastic flapping of hands’.
“Olwyn?” he rumbled.
Olwyn. I committed the bloodwitch’s name to memory. She might not trust me, but she was pleasant enough.
She glanced at her liege, then shook her head helplessly. “I haven’t the foggiest. We really must find you a writing instrument as soon as possible.”
I huffed out a soundless laugh, and curled my hands around each other, gazing out the window as the countryside around Argent flew by. If I had seen any of this before, I didn’t remember it; after the lai Darrans had left me on the Cathedral steps, I had never stepped foot outside the city walls again.
Now I was never to return.
If Antonetta had not chosen death over matrimony… if I had not been the one to respond when the Eldest Sister sent out a frantic summons for a maid this morning… if I had kept my eyes glued to the floor…
Several missteps, all perfectly aligned to bring me here. It would almost be funny, if the vampire across from me was not a fiend.
There would be no Library in my future. No new languages to decipher during my meal breaks from cleaning, in the hours when I was given time off for lessons.
No proving myself to the world, that I might be silent, but I was still worth something.
I was simply one of the four linch-pins that held the Blood Accords together. The only purpose in my life now was to exist as his wife, to prove that he had obeyed and taken a Veladari bride.
And… and for him to feed upon.
I glanced at my husband, the shining tips of his teeth, and imagined them piercing my flesh.
The pain of the needle, repeated a hundred times.
With a shudder, I turned back to the window and closed my eyes.